The Other Way Around

The fact that I have had a visitor more weekends in New York than I can count on my hands and feet continues to baffle and comfort me.  It keeps my energies in flux, my apartment happily more used and worn than it initially appeared, my dishes in motion, and my take forever doubling at this delectable city.  I spent this weekend with two road-tripping Dutchmen who thought parts of me had changed in the past year, and yet, also described me as virile.  Excited at first, that I might teach these two foreigners a thing or two about America, I soon realized that things would actually be the other way around.

I suddenly found myself in a torrent of valuable tidbits I would have definitely been without on this stormy Sunday evening.  I learned not to "suffer fools gladly," (especially when they continuously laughed for longer than the appropriate amount of time after a joke).  

I learned that New York City = Dutch in the following (and I'd assume many more) ways:  

1.New York used to be New Amsterdam.

2.Brooklyn is named for Breukelen, a town in Holland.

3.Staten Island is named after the Dutch word, Staten Generaal, the Dutch Parliament.

4.Boerem Hill (a neighborhood not far from mine) means "farmer's hill" in Dutch.

If that wasn't enough, I proceeded to get the entire low-down on what exactly goes on in the Tour de France, why it is so important, and why Lance Armstrong, at times, gets a less than warm welcome.  For those of you who are like me and apparently live in a cellar without a sliver of light in the form of every-day news, the Tour de France is a three week long ordeal, with multiple races consisting of team cycling, individual cycling, mountain cycling, and so forth.  It's nothing to scoff at, believe me.

I was educated on why the New York subway system is not as flashy and clean as those one would see elsewhere.  It has something to do with American public spending philosophies, our utilitarianism in terms of public transportation, the fact that we want our tax dollars to fit into certain slots and boxes in society, without a penny over-spent.  Elsewhere, taxpayers dish out more, so they can insolently marvel, mouths agape, at the spotless, artsy walls of their subway stations.  

I was made aware that Americans are more spontaneous, better tippers, more courteous with strangers, forced to deal with more touters, than our foreign friends.  That we should be grateful for the free water on the table at a restaurant, for the friendly passersby who don't steal your camera when you ask them to snap a photo of you, and for the fact that happiness is an apparent priority.   

That placebo can sometimes mean gazebo, that fricknack can sometimes mean knick knack. 

*Please note that each hyperlinked vocabulary word entered my unimpressive stash of gems from the English language in my knackered mind, this very weekend, thanks to the Dutchmen.

Meanwhile, I was able to teach them a grand total of 4 words:

1.soliloquy

2.hankering

3.bodega

4.tater tot

  

Just Another Freak Show

she skates through the air like a bird on crack

gray streaks in her hair and her booty gets smacked

with what some might call bizarre hideousness

she glides through life in blissful obliviousness

skate-salsa skate-flamenco skate-jive and skate grind

watching them snapped me into another state of mind

a freakshow in Central Park just for me!

where tourists flock like seagulls and crazies dance for free!

Earplugs

It always seems that just as I turn off my reading light and sink down into the covers at night, my new upstairs neighbor finds it necessary to mobilize. She generally comes home late, and as soon as I hear her stomping past my door up to the 3rd floor, I know I'm in for some serious fun. Sometimes, as I lay there trying to push thoughts and quandaries out of my clogged head and keep my eyes closed tight, it sounds like she is walking around with a couple of those plastic milk crates strapped to her feet as shoes - shuffling this way and that across her wood floors. Then, around 1:00 am, she begins to (seemingly) throw bricks willy-nilly around her apartment. Following that game, there's usually a series of doors and cabinets being opened and shut in rhythm. One or two punk rock songs are played randomly throughout all of this, along with a few loud sighs. Then, around 2:30 or 3:00, she decides to take a shower, the pipes ringing through my walls - at which point I reluctantly place my earplugs above my lobes. It's a step up, I guess, maybe, from the last tenants above me, who would come home drunk on a regular basis, and make loud, passionate love directly above me.

Summer Slaw

I'm generally opposed to slaws of all kinds, but after happening upon a mini farmer's market at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, my buds did a flip.

Zucchini and Squash Slaw

2 small zucchini

2 small yellow squash

1 bunch of radishes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

dash of salt

dash of pepper

Cut zucchini, yellow squash, and radishes into match-stick size strips.  Mix everything else up in a bowl of sorts, and then toss those veggies in.  Grab yourself a good baguette, slice it into thin bites, and spoon some of that slaw on.  

If your buds don't flip like mine did, I will reimburse you for what you spent on the ingredients.

Maine: A Haiku

rain poured down on us

so we poured beer down our throats

and cooked with wet wood

Night:

When I breathe, eat, talk, forget, remember, and sleep.

I breathe the crisp, welcoming, familiar Brooklyn air, swirling with bits of student laughter and Starbucks wafts, wind from behind bicycles and sighs from the swaying ginko trees.

I eat immediately. Vegetables and carbs, full cartons of baby tomatoes, quesadillas stuffed with sharp cheddar and red pepper and chicken-less chicken. Briegorgonzolaparmeseancreamcheese. Carrot ginger soup and chili, avocados, gazpacho and take-out sushi. A glass of pinot and a few episodes of This American Life.

I talk to whomever is on my mind: Nina, Dad, Hannah, aunts, uncles, old friends, new lovers, new friends, old lovers, from all ends and stretches of my mind, via all forms of communication.

I forget, or try to forget, the emails and the invoices and the contracts and the lists and the meetings. The banter and the formalities and the one-two-three of the day.

I remember everything else. For 6 hours at the end of it all I remember - and finally, I am beginning to be here, and make things worth remembering: plays, cafes, Scrabble in the park, concerts, commiseration over pints, and dancing.

Queens

As I sat in the cab outside the FedEx warehouse in Queens the other night I was pleasantly reminded of the movie Castaway.  Except in the movie, Tom Hanks' character stands in a Russian FedEx warehouse.  The area of Queens I was in, a flat, vast spread of warehouse upon warehouse, factory after factory.  Lauren says the area we were in is what runs New York City.  Water, electricity, etc... She had to go to the FedEx to pick up some concert tickets for a concert she wasn't even going to go to, and I waited in the cab with Aziz, the Turkish cab driver.  We sat in silence for about five minutes while I pretended I was busy playing with my phone.  He took a cat nap, and woke up suddenly, turning around abruptly to ask me if I wanted to listen to music.  I told him I hadn't lived here long enough to know any radio stations, and he told me he could tell I like the Beatles.  I do.  He flipped the dial and "Paperback Writer" played loudly from the back seat speakers.  After that, a commercial came on and Aziz turned the volume down, and turned abruptly to me once again.  He asked where I came from, why I was here, and where I live in New York.  After answering each question in turn, I asked him the same.  His family lives in Istanbul and he moved here for an American woman he fell in love with while she was studying at the University near where his parents lived.  He doesn't want kids, thinks Queens is the closest thing to heaven, and told me how the cab business works.  He simply pays rent on the car, $628 per week, and the money he makes after that, is all his.  He claims that he makes quite a bit of money, and I would imagine that if he drives around in the right areas of Manhattan, tips probably can be rather lucrative.  Maybe if publishing falls through...